


Very Important Date

by Wisteria_Leigh



Series: Prompted Works [9]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: College Student Adam Parrish, Fluff, I honestly never know what to tag anything soooo, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Post-The Raven King, Sick Adam Parrish, Sickfic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 13:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17060834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wisteria_Leigh/pseuds/Wisteria_Leigh
Summary: "Why didn't you listen?" Adam muttered, because in his overheated, exhausted, congested, delusional state, this was a fight he thought he had some chance of winning.Ronan held his gaze. "If you really want me to go," he said, "I'll go."Adam knew it wasn't a lie.





	Very Important Date

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by an anon on Tumblr: "Could you write one where Adam is dealing with Something (being sick, missing home, whatever) while away at school and Ronan comes and helps him Deal."

Ronan Lynch put on a good enough “I don’t fucking give a flying fuckity fuck about fuck all” front that he could fool most people. Even Gansey had fallen for it a fair few times; Declan, too. Underneath the patina of curse words, snarls, and jagged edges, however, Ronan Lynch was a giant fucking sap.

Example A: Baby animals.

Example B: Matthew.

Example C: Opal.

Examples D-ZZ: Adam Parrish.

The evidence? He had a timer set in his underused phone counting down the days until he got to see Adam again. On this particular Wednesday in early November, it was down to a little over 2 days.

He hadn’t looked at it since Sunday. Not because he was a savage, fun-sucking monster hiding in a 20-year-old boy’s body (as he would like you to believe), but because he was at the point where counting down the hours was more fulfilling than counting down the days; there were more of them but they went faster. Currently, he was suffering through hour 52, which was feeling more like 52 years in and of itself.

They had planned for him to come visit at the start of November: the middle period between Adam’s visits to the Barns for Fall Break and Thanksgiving. And Ronan was _prepared._ He had _plans._ Had spent hours searching for the best and cheapest food places in Ithaca, New York. Had found the best look-out points and the hiking trails with the least foot traffic. Even knew what _movies_ were in theaters; he hadn’t watched a film in theaters since 2007. But he didn’t know what Adam was going to want to do, and God Fucking Forbid he not be ready to give Adam whatever he wanted.

His lengthy potential itineraries were scribbled in his moleskine notebook, packed in his duffel along with everything else, because at countdown hour 94 he was pacing the house and needed some way to put his frenetic energy to productive and non-destructive uses.

Now, he stood on top a hill out back of The Barns, surveying his kingdom of golden hickory trees and grazing cow herds and trying very very hard to not stare at his watch with the vague hope that the ley line would throw its favorite dreamer a bone and speed time up a bit.

His phone buzzed with an erratic rhythm, and sang a ringtone different than the usual.

Adam was calling. Ronan smiled and accepted.  

“Whatever you’re selling, I’m not fucking interested.”

“Good, because even your rich ass can’t afford me,” Adam replied.

Ronan laughed, throwing his head back and sending his joy into the clouds. He liked to imagine Adam could feel it when he did that. “Hey, you sounds weird. Where are you?”

“Nowhere. Well, nowhere important. Just my room.”

“Don’t you have class, in, like,” he checked his watch as he started walking down the hill, “ten minutes?”

“Yeah, I do. But I wanted to talk to you real quick first.”

“Oh. Okay. Hey, so I’m thinking as long as traffic isn’t a son of a bitch like it was last time, I can make it to Cornell by 5 on Friday.”

“Yeah,” Adam said, drawing out the vowels, “about that.”

“What?”

“I, uh.”

“What happened? You have a shift or something?”

“No. I--”

“Because I can totally have Chainsaw cause a whole fucking scene and sneak you out the back. I’m not above that shit, you know.”

“No, I asked off weeks ago.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Ronan huffed.

“If you stop talking and _listen,_ I can _tell you._ Jesus. It’s just,” Adam sighed. “Look, I’m--”

“Spit it out, Parrish.”

“--I think I’m getting sick.”

“Okay? And?”

“You probably shouldn’t come this weekend.”

Ronan stopped mid-step. His hand tightened into a fist.

“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t--I didn’t want to cancel. But something's going around campus, and--”

Fire grew in Ronan’s chest. “No, no I get it,” he grumbled.

“And it wouldn’t be fun for you. And you’d get it, too, probably, and--”

He wanted so badly to throw the phone. “Parrish. It’s fine. I understand,” he bit out instead.

Adam sighed, pained and ragged. Ronan could see him digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, or running a hand through his choppy hair: his nervous ticks when he was upset, and felt safe enough to show it.

“I know you’re mad. I’m sorry,” he said softly, and the way his voice cracked dosed the flames in an instant. Ronan released the smoke from the embers in one long exhale, and then it was gone. He sat down on the slope of the hill.

"It’s okay,” he said, and he meant it. “I’m not,” he started, “I’m just,” he groaned. “It sucks.”

“I’m disappointed, too,” Adam said. Ronan could suddenly hear the strain in his voice, caught on to how tired he sounded. He kicked himself for not hearing it sooner. “I was looking forward to it,” Adam sighed.

“Yeah. Me too.”

“We can go on our date next weekend?” Adam said. Still tentative, almost afraid. Ronan hated it.

“Yeah. Next weekend.” And he tried his hardest to sound as earnest as he felt.

“Okay. I, um, gotta get to class. I’ll text you.” A pause. “I’m so sorry.”

“Stop apologizing Parrish,” Ronan snorted. “And make sure you chug a bottle of orange juice or something.”

“Okay. Bye.”

Ronan hung up first. He sat among the dried and dying grass for a long time, picking at his leather bracelets.

He was back to counting days.

 

 

#######

 

 

Adam woke on Saturday to rainy skies, aching limbs, and skin prickling with fever chills. Coughing and congestion had kept him up half the night, and once he had finally fallen asleep, the itchy discomfort of a temperature hadn’t allowed for restful sleep. He was tired. And miserable. And couldn’t breathe out of his nose. And there was a loud pounding in his head, out-of-sync with the dull ache that had settled in his left ear during the night.

He missed Ronan. Had been so looking forward to waking up in a tangle of limbs this weekend; to pointedly ignoring his homework and assigned readings in favor of other, more pleasurable tasks; to hearing Ronan’s snipes and curses and laughs in person again, fuller and more vibrant than they ever were when distorted through his shitty cell phone’s shittier service plan.

But he was also trying not to think about that, because he was lucid enough to know that it was, in fact, his fault Ronan wasn't here. He had made the call. Ronan would’ve come, regardless. But he would’ve felt shitty for not being able to entertain him, on top of feeling shitty already, and then would’ve felt even shittier once Ronan inevitably got sick and was alone at the Barns with cows to feed and eggs to harvest and a farm that demanded maintenance regardless of Ronan’s health.

The pounding grew louder. More erratic.

It wasn’t coming from his head, he realized.

Something, or someone, was making that noise. It couldn't be Colton, his suitemate, and Julie, his girlfriend, _enjoying_ themselves next door, because they were avoiding the contamination zone as much as possible. And the people above them _could_ be stomping around, but that was doubtful because they’d never done anything like that before, since they knew an RA lived below them. And there was no reason why the people below him would be _knocking_ on the _ceiling,_ honestly, Adam was sick not stupid that was a ridiculous scenario to even consider--

The knocking paused. His phone buzzed. More pounding. Louder, this time, accompanied by a gruff, “Parrish, wake the fuck up.”

Ah. It was the door. That was...the obvious choice once Adam finally realized it.

He groaned and grabbed for his phone. Ronan’s text stream from yesterday was still pulled up:

_Morning, shithead. How are you feeling?_

_Awful._

Ronan had then sent multiple poop emojis and one emoji wearing a surgical mask. Such a _delightful_ human being...

Adam barely remember talking to him, slipping in and out of feverish sleep for most of Friday after pushing himself through lectures and labs and even a shift at the library on Thursday. A notification at the bottom of the screen said there were more recent texts, but he couldn’t really string together a coherent thought let alone answer any of them. He had a bunch of missed calls, too. One recent. Maybe even from a second ago, although he’d lost the ability to understand time around the same time he took his 3rd dose of Dayquil. Regardless, he couldn’t bring himself to care about any them.  

The constant banging on the door was becoming nauseating. Guess he should do something about that.

Adam stumbled out of bed, shivering despite his Cornell Engineering sweatshirt and flannel PJ pants the second his bare feet touched the cold tile floor.

“Hold on,” he tried to shout at the door, but his voice was ragged and underused and, quite frankly, hurt like hell, so he wasn’t sure if whoever it was could even hear him over the goddamn drum solo they were banging into the cheap wood door.

He hoped it wasn’t a student. God, he _prayed_ it wasn’t a student. He was in no state to offer any sort of guidance right now, even if it was just to ask how to use the fucking laundry room (honestly, it was _October_ , they were _sophomores,_ how had they not figured _laundry_ out by now? They were getting a damn Ivy League education and they seriously couldn’t figure out how to slide a card, press a button, and wash their damn clothes?)

Besides, there was a sign on his door: “Adam is off-duty until further notice. Call Alex, Nancy, or Georgia if you need assistance.” But again, not like Adam trusted a bunch of kids who didn’t know how to run a fucking laundry machine to be able to read and/or care about what a sign said.

More likely it was Colton, or Julie. While they had fled Adam’s festering contagion, they were kind enough to bring him supplies: pre-made soups, oranges stolen from the cafeteria, tissues, Gatorade, notes missed from their history and world religions seminars, stupid $1 Get Well Soon cards that were so bad they almost weren’t even funny. All the basics. They’d taken to knocking and leaving the bag outside his door. Although they’d never knocked so _insistently._ Maybe they’d warmed the soup up for him? Or stolen something fresh from the cafeteria. Or just wanted to make sure he was alive in-person (they’d been texting him, but Adam had no idea how long he’d been asleep, or even what day it was anymore, so there was a chance they’d gotten worried enough to brave the bacteria incubator.)

He opened the door, squinting against the harsh fluorescent light of the hallway. There was no bag on the floor. Only a growing puddle of water, and scuffed Doc Martens.

Weird...

_Wait._

“Ronan?”

“Took you fucking long enough,” Ronan said, standing in his leather jacket with a duffle in one hand and overstuffed grocery bags in the other. “I thought you’d died.”

“What the hell? What’re doing here?”

“Jesus Fucking Christ, you sound like shit.” Ronan shouldered past him into the room, shaking rainwater from his jacket and hair. Somewhere deep in the fog of fever and Dayquil Severe, Adam realized he should have thrown all the tissues into the wastebasket before opening the door.

“You didn’t answer my calls, so I used my fucking phone like you always get on my ass about doing and asked Colton if you were on your deathbed yet, only to find out the bastard abandoned you.”

Adam didn’t move from the doorway, half-convinced that if he did this very delightful fever dream would end. “Soccer team’s on a winning streak. Colton didn’t want to miss the game next weekend. Why are you here?”

Ronan dropped his bags and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Because you’re sick as fuck, dude."

"Exactly. And I'm contagious as fuck." As if on cue, Adam's breath hitched and he stifled a sneeze. "Ugh. God. Sorry."

Ronan tossed him the tissue box. "News flash, I don't fucking care," he said. 

"But you  _should._ You've got...farm shit. And, I feel fucking awful, and I don't want you to--"

"Parrish. I don't. Fucking. Care."

Adam sighed, and tossed the tissue box on his bed. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. Everything ached. "Why didn't you listen?" he muttered, because in his overheated, exhausted, congested, delusional state, this was a fight he thought he had some chance of winning (spoiler alert: he didn't.) 

Ronan crossed his arms. "You want me to leave?"

"What?" Adam coughed.  "You just got here. You're not gonna," he coughed, "drive 7 hours back in the rain when you just," and again, "drove seven hours here. That's stupid."

Ronan held his gaze. "If you  _really_ want me to go," he said, "I'll go."

Adam knew it wasn't a lie. 

He sighed, and shut the door. "No," he said. "I don't want you to go."

"Okay. Cool."

Adam stepped closer. "I would've been okay on my own," he muttered. 

"I mean, yeah, you would've survived," Ronan said. "But you look like death hung out to dry, so it's not like you're doing that great of a fucking job right now."

Adam sniffed. "I feel like shit," he agreed.

Ronan snorted. "Exactly. You feel like shit, and you’re alone. I know how much that sucks.”

Adam’s brow furrowed. “I mean. That’s not unusual, for me. That's always how it's been. I just,” he shrugged. “I deal with it.”

Ronan cupped Adam’s face with gentle hands, cold still from the chilly autumn air of upstate New York. Adam sighed and leaned into his palm.

“When are you going to get it through that oversized, beautiful fucking brain of yours that you don’t have to ‘just deal’ with shit anymore? That’s not your life now. You have me. And Colton. And your other weird-ass nerd friends.”

“I know,” Adam croaked, closing his eyes and leaning into Ronan. “Old habits and all that.”

Ronan kissed his hairline. “We’ll have to keeping working on that,” he said softly.

Adam hummed.

Ronan brushed Adam’s hair--sticky with feverish sweat--from his forehead, and ran a thumb down his flushed cheekbones. “Now, I don’t mean to be a dick,” he said, “but it smells like the plague died in here.”

Adam coughed into his elbow. “Sorry.”

“Go take a shower and get out of these gross-ass clothes.”

“‘Kay.”

Adam stepped back from Ronan, and stared at him for a minute with an odd look in his eyes.

“What?” Ronan said.

“I just. I can’t believe you’re here.”

Ronan shrugged. “We have a date. And you better fucking believe I am not going to be the one to miss a fucking date with Adam Parrish.”

“Did you have somethin’ planned?” Adam asked, voice cracking painfully.

“Lots. And conveniently, I thought of it all under the assumption that you’d be fucking miserable.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. Because then I can’t possibly fuck it up. So. Thanks for following along.”

Adam laughed, which was more like a half-laugh, half-cough/sneeze, but whatever, Ronan counted it as a win.

“What’s the plan then?” Adam asked through a tissue (he did, in fact, take a second to throw out all the used ones.)

“First, you shower while I spray half this fucking bottle of Lysol in here. And then we’ll watch one of those shitty documentaries you fucking get off on, and eat soup, and prank-call Colton and tell him that you’ve died and are a ghost that’s gonna haunt him forever for fucking leaving your miserable ass to die alone.”

Adam smiled. “Sounds good.”

He fell asleep after only eating half the soup and watching 30mins of a documentary about a master sushi chef. They never got around to prank-calling.

 

 

#######

 

 

Ronan did, in fact, return to the Barns on Monday, only to wake up on Tuesday with the same monstrous cold Adam was getting over. He planned to spend a week in bed feeling like half his body mass was made up of mucus and germs, texting Adam about how miserable he was and how Adam “should have warned him.”

Instead, Adam showed up Thursday morning.

“You have class,” Ronan said, staring at him as if he were the Angel Gabriel sent down from heaven itself.

“I skipped,” Adam shrugged, setting down his backpack and grocery bag of supplies.

“Why?”

“We had a date. And I'm sure not gonna be the first one to miss a date, either.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sidenote: I made a [Ronan Lynch playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/seholland92/playlist/2bUjqDZzrcswSlc22dcJ8O?si=qCXYO9JaTByEbJ8XucW3xQ) (that I listened to while finishing this piece up [hence why it's tangentially relevant!!]) because I listen to EDM/electronica when I run, and I run an awful lot, and if I let every Ronan-ish song I find be added to my other TRC playlists he would just....take them over like Kudzu. SO. If you'd like to experience a hilarious mix of EDM, Irish folk, and Catholic Chanting, this playlist will fulfill all your needs!!!!!


End file.
